recent online purchasing success and failure stories please post here!

Tom_NK · 12-22-2005, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gripp

I havent bought anything yet but planning too soon online. But before I do I have some questions. Where do I check to see if the online store is a sony authorized dealer? There are two online stores Im looking at, B&H and Electonic Express. I would go with crutchfield but the price is out of my limit, unless if anyone know if the price will drop to about $1500 in January?

http://www.sonystyle.com/intershopro...rized_dealers/

Another tip, find their physical addresses through the company info link and go to the Better Business Bureau to see how many complaints they've had against them and whether or not they work with the BBB on any claims.

I've recently filed a claim against Buy.com and most of the complaints are very similar to mine. Also, if they are Bizrate rated, look at the percentage of negative and neutral complaints and pretty much ignore the green smiley face. I think 2% or less negative would be a reasonable expectation. Resellerratings.com is also a good resource.

Hope this helps.

Gripp · 12-22-2005, 10:38 PM

Thank you Tom_NK. I think I'll go with Crutchfield to be on the safe side. The only think I need to know now is when do prices go down on tv's. Is there a certain month that they drop in price?

Kirk munsell · 12-23-2005, 07:10 PM

I purchased a Sony KDFE50A10 on 12-13 evening for $1949, including shipping, from Gregg at One Call (authorized Sony dealer). I added a three year warranty for $189 that includes bulb replacement. The TV arrived in pristine condition 7 days later as promised-no dings in the box and the shock tubes clear. The tv was shipped from WV to South FL just before Christmas on time. The driver brought it to my front door and removed it from the pallet. A great experience and I saved hundreds the over the local stores. Will I buy from One Call again? You had better believe It!

rkruz · 12-29-2005, 03:46 PM

why do you think so many of these online TV retailers are located in NY/NJ. Many are on the same street and some even share hte same address! Kinda spooky. Why not more dealers in Az etc?

techjunky · 01-04-2006, 09:30 PM

I was recently in the market for a new TV to replace my Mitsubishi RPTV 55" widescreen HD set. I just couldn't justify having that whale of a set in my living room anymore. I immediatly had my eye on a flat screen design. Now I had to decide on a Plasma or an LCD. I did endless research online and in stores. I came to the conclusion that I wanted an LCD set in the 35" to 40" range on a budget of no more than $2500.00. So I looked and looked at local retail stores and I found 2 sets I really liked in that price range. I found a Samsung LCD and a Sharp Aquos. I decided to check online and see what kind of prices I could find on the web. Holy &*(%!. I could'nt beleive how much cheaper I could get one of these sets for online. I went to Shopzilla.com and it gave me about 30 different stores that these sets were available on. So I found a site(Butterflyphoto) that looked to be a reputable site with 10,000 transactions+ and a positive Biz RATE rating. The site I chose to buy from was Butterfly Photo.com. The set I decided to go with was a Sharp LC-37DB5U. I ordered the set online through their site with my credit card, and it was at my door 5 days later. I was very pleased with the service from this online store, and would buy from them again. All in all, I got a 37" Aquos with a very detailed 3 year extended warranty for $2350.00. Not to bad when Best Buy offered the same set on sale for $2600.00 at the time of my purchase.

JohninTenn · 01-04-2006, 09:45 PM

like there is for cameras, watches and stereo stuff?

crfrider · 01-05-2006, 01:59 AM

Ordered a Samsung HL-R5688W from Abe's of Maine thats located in New York 10 days before christmas. I get an e-mail from a shipping company(Manna) that says it's called my house to arrange delivery and I had no such messages on my answering machine and they had a secondary cell number they could have called anyway to contact me. I contact them finally and a couple days later a van pulls up with a TV thats not the one I've ordered. I tell the driver I'm not accepting it and start the telephone thing with the shipping people. They tell me to contact Abe's of Maine which I do. They say the correct TV was sent out for me so now all parties are wondering where the Samsung is? After calling Abe's over and over and being told numerous times I would be called back but never was I finally get called from the shipper that they located my TV on a truck in another city and I would receive it the next day which is now the day before christmas eve. It does arrive all in one piece and the driver is very helpfull unloading it and putting it where I wanted it.
The day after christmas all these rectangular white bars pop up on the Samsung screen out of no where so now I'm on the phone to Samsung service that has me try a thing or two to correct the problem to no avail. I'm now about to explode when I'm told a service tech has to come to my house for the repair. The nearest place is 150 miles away and the tech guy calls to say he must order a part to be sure he has all the necessary boards. Three days later he calls back when he should have been pulling up to the house and says the parts didn't arrive and it was going to be another 4 days. I'm still waiting, he said friday now.
Saturday I must go back to work away for 2 months so I've only watched the TV a couple days so far and now having to wait another couple months really sucks.
I only hope this problem with the Samsung HL-R5688W is an isolated one and nothing else happens. As you can guess it's not been a very merry christmas.

TigerAce · 01-05-2006, 09:25 AM

I have decided on the set I want..Mits 73827. Only one store in town carries it at $6750.00. Only very few stores online carry it and are selling it for $4950-$5400.

I would prefer to purchase local but this savings is incredible online not to mention that the shipping will be cheaper than the tax...plus the warranty prices are comparable.

I suppose there is a way I can block payment if I don't get my TV?

And what about purchasing a warranty online? How do you get service?

Does anyone have experience with "Repair Master"? They seem to be pretty popular online.

Is there a way to purchase a warranty from a local dealer?

Thanks for any advice or comments.
Tamie

TigerAce · 01-06-2006, 10:34 AM

I am planning to purchase a Big Screen online because of the 2000 savings. But what about extended warranty. What are the best options?

I really need some advice on this.

Gripp · 01-06-2006, 11:31 PM

I just purchased a Sony TV (KD-34XBR906N) from Abt electronics. The reason I bought it from them was it was on sale for $300 less, they're an authorized sony dealer and read good review about them. They have an online live chat if you need to ask them any question, which I found useful. They do price matching and have extended warranty (4 year plan only). You can still get the extended warranty even after you buy it, with a certain about of days after purchase.

One problem I had was that they didnt email or phoned me about the tracking number for my order. I had to call them for it. The shipping part was ok. Since it was free shipping it took a bit longer than I had expected, about 9 buisness days. Everything had turned out alright

mrconos · 01-07-2006, 09:58 AM

When I was ordering my TV I was very skeptical about ordering something so big and expensive online, and I was really close to doing it from onecall, as I had heard nothing but good things about their company, plus their prices are very reasonable.... the night I was about to order it, I went around to a couple of local stores for a last look at the tv, and a salesman quoted me a price $40 cheaper than onecall's current sale at the time, after you take into consideration shipping ... he knocked off about $200 from the TVs listed weekly sale price (it was already on sale for about 250 off reg price), and offered the stand for $100 off the listed sale price... plus their 5 year warranty (through GE, a reputable company) was $100 cheaper than onecall's.... I wasn't aware local b&M stores could "negotiate" that much, but I was glad they did, not only did I get a very fair price (slightly better than onecall's), I also was more at ease buying locally....

basically the point of my post is if you are somewhat unconfortable ordering online, and just doing it to save some money, see what kind of deal you can find locally first, don't just go by listed prices

veneziaman · 01-07-2006, 04:18 PM

If you wouldn't mind, would you please tell us what kind of tv you were shopping for and the name of the store where you got the good deal (if it was a large B&M store)?

daleb · 01-07-2006, 04:37 PM

There is no doubt you are always better buying locally. It would take a huge difference in price to make me do otherwise on high ticket items.
But if you do online purchases, just choose wisely. It would seem most transactions go through without a problem.

Mickey · 01-09-2006, 09:47 AM

I just took delivery of my set and my shopping experience almost mirrowed mrconos.

Being in the PNW and OneCall having a good rep, I priced out the set I was interested in. Wasn't about to make a on-line purchase until we at least saw a couple in person. We went looking last week and dropped into a local chain, Video Only and took a look. For a sec I thought I was in a auto dealership. Salesmanager said the end of yr sale was ending today and would we consider buying today if we were offered a better price than posted. Yea, sure. Well they did offer a price that was a lot better and was give until the end of the day to decide. Went back home and got on the net again just to see. This offer was better than One Call.

The set we bought was a Toshiba 56MX195. This list for $3200 if I remember correctly. The matching stand list for $400 and that is what One Call was asking. VO was asking $300 but our offer was $250. Same with 5 yr extended warrantee from G.E. asking $289 our price was $200. Total price was $3200 delivered and setup in the house. While One Call sells these sets but for this series they only sell at their B&M store, not on-line. Not sure why.

G.E.'s warrantee has a performace guarantee, the item must perform as intended. I was shown a fax from local G.E. dist manager saying the projection lamp fell under the performance gaurantee so projection lamps were covered. No mention of limit on lamps.

In our area, service for both Toshiba and G.E. are provided by same Co. This should help on our end as I would hope I don't have to deal with any finger pointing on who pays for covered items. One repairman and they get to decide who to bill.

Tom_NK · 01-09-2006, 06:43 PM

I ordered a TV from Buy.com on November 25th. I finally got a refund on January 6th. They did give me a $100 gift certificate for the trouble, but it's not enough. I ended up buying one from BB because it is local and I was able to take it home myself. I purchased the TV just before Christmas and had the week off, so I didn't want to wait for a week. Had it not been for this, I would've purchased from One Call.

Again, Buy.com has shipping issues.

12-23-2005, 07:10 PM	#153
Kirk munsell High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 38	One Call was Great I purchased a Sony KDFE50A10 on 12-13 evening for $1949, including shipping, from Gregg at One Call (authorized Sony dealer). I added a three year warranty for $189 that includes bulb replacement. The TV arrived in pristine condition 7 days later as promised-no dings in the box and the shock tubes clear. The tv was shipped from WV to South FL just before Christmas on time. The driver brought it to my front door and removed it from the pallet. A great experience and I saved hundreds the over the local stores. Will I buy from One Call again? You had better believe It!

01-04-2006, 09:30 PM	#155
techjunky All my TV's are HD! Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 319	Online purchasing is the way to go! I was recently in the market for a new TV to replace my Mitsubishi RPTV 55" widescreen HD set. I just couldn't justify having that whale of a set in my living room anymore. I immediatly had my eye on a flat screen design. Now I had to decide on a Plasma or an LCD. I did endless research online and in stores. I came to the conclusion that I wanted an LCD set in the 35" to 40" range on a budget of no more than $2500.00. So I looked and looked at local retail stores and I found 2 sets I really liked in that price range. I found a Samsung LCD and a Sharp Aquos. I decided to check online and see what kind of prices I could find on the web. Holy &*(%!. I could'nt beleive how much cheaper I could get one of these sets for online. I went to Shopzilla.com and it gave me about 30 different stores that these sets were available on. So I found a site(Butterflyphoto) that looked to be a reputable site with 10,000 transactions+ and a positive Biz RATE rating. The site I chose to buy from was Butterfly Photo.com. The set I decided to go with was a Sharp LC-37DB5U. I ordered the set online through their site with my credit card, and it was at my door 5 days later. I was very pleased with the service from this online store, and would buy from them again. All in all, I got a 37" Aquos with a very detailed 3 year extended warranty for $2350.00. Not to bad when Best Buy offered the same set on sale for $2600.00 at the time of my purchase. __________________ My Home Theater: Television: NEC XR5 Receiver: Denon AVR-4800 (THX ULTRA) DVD Player: Denon DVD-2800 Fronts:Wharfedale Pi-40's(Kevlar drivers) Rears: Wharfedale Pi-30's(Kevlar drivers) Center: Polk Audio CS400i Sub: B&W ASW650 12"(paper/kevlar cone) PowerCenter: Monster Power HTS2600 MKII Speaker wire: Silver Sonic by DH LABS Remote: Sony (Touch Screen) RM-AV2100

01-04-2006, 09:45 PM	#156
JohninTenn High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 593	Is there a Gray market.... like there is for cameras, watches and stereo stuff?

01-05-2006, 01:59 AM	#157
crfrider HD Novice Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Eastern NC Posts: 29	Merry Christmas ? NOT Ordered a Samsung HL-R5688W from Abe's of Maine thats located in New York 10 days before christmas. I get an e-mail from a shipping company(Manna) that says it's called my house to arrange delivery and I had no such messages on my answering machine and they had a secondary cell number they could have called anyway to contact me. I contact them finally and a couple days later a van pulls up with a TV thats not the one I've ordered. I tell the driver I'm not accepting it and start the telephone thing with the shipping people. They tell me to contact Abe's of Maine which I do. They say the correct TV was sent out for me so now all parties are wondering where the Samsung is? After calling Abe's over and over and being told numerous times I would be called back but never was I finally get called from the shipper that they located my TV on a truck in another city and I would receive it the next day which is now the day before christmas eve. It does arrive all in one piece and the driver is very helpfull unloading it and putting it where I wanted it. The day after christmas all these rectangular white bars pop up on the Samsung screen out of no where so now I'm on the phone to Samsung service that has me try a thing or two to correct the problem to no avail. I'm now about to explode when I'm told a service tech has to come to my house for the repair. The nearest place is 150 miles away and the tech guy calls to say he must order a part to be sure he has all the necessary boards. Three days later he calls back when he should have been pulling up to the house and says the parts didn't arrive and it was going to be another 4 days. I'm still waiting, he said friday now. Saturday I must go back to work away for 2 months so I've only watched the TV a couple days so far and now having to wait another couple months really sucks. I only hope this problem with the Samsung HL-R5688W is an isolated one and nothing else happens. As you can guess it's not been a very merry christmas.

01-05-2006, 09:25 AM	#158
TigerAce Our First Big Screen !! Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 31	Online Savings? I have decided on the set I want..Mits 73827. Only one store in town carries it at $6750.00. Only very few stores online carry it and are selling it for $4950-$5400. I would prefer to purchase local but this savings is incredible online not to mention that the shipping will be cheaper than the tax...plus the warranty prices are comparable. I suppose there is a way I can block payment if I don't get my TV? And what about purchasing a warranty online? How do you get service? Does anyone have experience with "Repair Master"? They seem to be pretty popular online. Is there a way to purchase a warranty from a local dealer? Thanks for any advice or comments. Tamie

12-22-2005, 10:38 PM	#152
Gripp What is HD? Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 3	Thank you Tom_NK. I think I'll go with Crutchfield to be on the safe side. The only think I need to know now is when do prices go down on tv's. Is there a certain month that they drop in price?

12-29-2005, 03:46 PM	#154
rkruz How can anyone watch standard def? Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 23	why do you think so many of these online TV retailers are located in NY/NJ. Many are on the same street and some even share hte same address! Kinda spooky. Why not more dealers in Az etc?

01-06-2006, 10:34 AM	#159
TigerAce Our First Big Screen !! Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 31	Online Purchase Warranty I am planning to purchase a Big Screen online because of the 2000 savings. But what about extended warranty. What are the best options? I really need some advice on this.

01-06-2006, 11:31 PM	#160
Gripp What is HD? Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 3	I just purchased a Sony TV (KD-34XBR906N) from Abt electronics. The reason I bought it from them was it was on sale for $300 less, they're an authorized sony dealer and read good review about them. They have an online live chat if you need to ask them any question, which I found useful. They do price matching and have extended warranty (4 year plan only). You can still get the extended warranty even after you buy it, with a certain about of days after purchase. One problem I had was that they didnt email or phoned me about the tracking number for my order. I had to call them for it. The shipping part was ok. Since it was free shipping it took a bit longer than I had expected, about 9 buisness days. Everything had turned out alright

01-07-2006, 09:58 AM	#161
mrconos High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 76	When I was ordering my TV I was very skeptical about ordering something so big and expensive online, and I was really close to doing it from onecall, as I had heard nothing but good things about their company, plus their prices are very reasonable.... the night I was about to order it, I went around to a couple of local stores for a last look at the tv, and a salesman quoted me a price $40 cheaper than onecall's current sale at the time, after you take into consideration shipping ... he knocked off about $200 from the TVs listed weekly sale price (it was already on sale for about 250 off reg price), and offered the stand for $100 off the listed sale price... plus their 5 year warranty (through GE, a reputable company) was $100 cheaper than onecall's.... I wasn't aware local b&M stores could "negotiate" that much, but I was glad they did, not only did I get a very fair price (slightly better than onecall's), I also was more at ease buying locally.... basically the point of my post is if you are somewhat unconfortable ordering online, and just doing it to save some money, see what kind of deal you can find locally first, don't just go by listed prices

01-07-2006, 04:18 PM	#162
veneziaman Technology advances fast Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 25	If you wouldn't mind, would you please tell us what kind of tv you were shopping for and the name of the store where you got the good deal (if it was a large B&M store)?

01-07-2006, 04:37 PM	#163
daleb High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Clovis, CA Posts: 7,296	There is no doubt you are always better buying locally. It would take a huge difference in price to make me do otherwise on high ticket items. But if you do online purchases, just choose wisely. It would seem most transactions go through without a problem. __________________ Samsung PN50A650 plasma, Arcam AVR350, Dali Ikon6 (Vokal2&OnWalls), Outlaw Audio LFM-1EX sub, Anti-Mode 8033B, Oppo Digital BDP-83, Polk XM Tuner, Furman Elite power conditioner

01-09-2006, 09:47 AM	#164
Mickey ole gezzer in training Join Date: May 2005 Location: PNW Oregon Posts: 212	I just took delivery of my set and my shopping experience almost mirrowed mrconos. Being in the PNW and OneCall having a good rep, I priced out the set I was interested in. Wasn't about to make a on-line purchase until we at least saw a couple in person. We went looking last week and dropped into a local chain, Video Only and took a look. For a sec I thought I was in a auto dealership. Salesmanager said the end of yr sale was ending today and would we consider buying today if we were offered a better price than posted. Yea, sure. Well they did offer a price that was a lot better and was give until the end of the day to decide. Went back home and got on the net again just to see. This offer was better than One Call. The set we bought was a Toshiba 56MX195. This list for $3200 if I remember correctly. The matching stand list for $400 and that is what One Call was asking. VO was asking $300 but our offer was $250. Same with 5 yr extended warrantee from G.E. asking $289 our price was $200. Total price was $3200 delivered and setup in the house. While One Call sells these sets but for this series they only sell at their B&M store, not on-line. Not sure why. G.E.'s warrantee has a performace guarantee, the item must perform as intended. I was shown a fax from local G.E. dist manager saying the projection lamp fell under the performance gaurantee so projection lamps were covered. No mention of limit on lamps. In our area, service for both Toshiba and G.E. are provided by same Co. This should help on our end as I would hope I don't have to deal with any finger pointing on who pays for covered items. One repairman and they get to decide who to bill.

01-09-2006, 06:43 PM	#165
Tom_NK High Definition is the definition of life. Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 30	Buy.com - TV never arrived, finally got refund I ordered a TV from Buy.com on November 25th. I finally got a refund on January 6th. They did give me a $100 gift certificate for the trouble, but it's not enough. I ended up buying one from BB because it is local and I was able to take it home myself. I purchased the TV just before Christmas and had the week off, so I didn't want to wait for a week. Had it not been for this, I would've purchased from One Call. Again, Buy.com has shipping issues.